Huckleberry Finn: Society Is Not Always Right

1231 Words5 Pages

J.R.R. Tolkien once said, “Not all those who wander are lost.” This quote illustrates that if people make their own decisions they will be able to find a path that suits their desires, not those of others. In the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, Huck struggles throughout his adventures to find equilibrium between what he wants to do and what society wants him to do. Consequently, Huck tries to battle the inner conflicts that he has and not conform to society’s “accepted” values. Mark Twain identifies these struggles by using different stylistic elements throughout the three sections of the novel, showing the development of Huck as the novel progresses.
First, in the beginning of the novel Huck starts to realize that society is not always right. In this section, Twain uses sarcasm and mockery in order to show how people will believe something just because a “qualified” person says so. This is shown when Tom Sawyer and Huck say:
“Why, blame it all, we’ve got to do it. Don’t I tell you it’s in the books? Do you want to go to doing different from what’s in the books, and get things all muddled up?”
“Oh, that’s all very fine to say, Tom Sawyer, but how in the nation are these fellows going to be ransomed if we don’t know how to do it to them? – that’s the thing I want to get at. Now, what so you reckon it is?” (9)
This quote criticizes how society accepts values because they read or heard it somewhere. Here, Tom acts as if he knows what he is doing, and he is instructing all the other kids to do what he says because “that’s what the books say.” Twain uses sarcasm and mockery in order to tell his audience not to conform to society just because it is easier to do so or because society will not approve if th...
... middle of paper ...
...se of determining the type of situation that he is in. In this case, Huck learns that this might not be the best place to voice his opinion because the main goal is to help Jim escape. Huck has no choice but to comply with Tom’s absurd demands. Overall, Huck has learned that in most situations your instinct is mostly the right way to go, and you shouldn’t conform to the values that the people around you preach.
Without a doubt, Huck develops into an individual who learns that society is not always right and that he needs to trust his instincts. Twain use of many stylistic features including syntax, diction, mockery, and sarcasm emphasizes the problems that society has. Twain’s overall purpose for his audience is to become more individualistic and not to be guided by the ways of society. People need to make their own decisions based on their values and instincts.

The theme of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn is that the ideas of society can greatly influence the individual, and sometimes the individual must break off from the accepted values of society to determine the ultimate truth for himself. In Huckleberry Finn's world, society has corrupted justice and morality to fit the needs of the people of the nation at that time. Basically, Americans were justifying slavery, through whatever social or religious ways that they deemed necessary during this time.

Huckleberry Finn
Huckleberry Finn is a loveable timeless classic written by one of the great American authors, Mark Twain. A companion to the Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn offers fans a closer look into the life of Huck Finn. Although the novel has similar characters and settings, the theme and moral dilemmas are much stronger than those we saw in Tom Sawyer.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn holds a darker side that Tom Sawyer did. In this piece we see an abused Huck try to

The Racial Debate of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, throughout the years, has provoked many debates pertaining to racism. A variety of individuals believe that Mark Twain expressed apparently racist ideas. The reason being, this novel shows the relationships between blacks and whites in the nineteenth century and all the ugliness that accompanied these associations. However, this novel is not a racist novel; it shows these situations not

excitement and value as Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn , as the story takes you through a journey between the capers of a young blooded, wild-eyed boy, and his freedom-chasing friend. Among other literary wonders, Huckleberry Finn stands out by tackling the key topics of its time and challenging them; in this case, racism. Likewise, there’s another, albeit more dated book, which looks to serve the same purpose. Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations , like Huckleberry Finn, rode along the lines of some sensitive

Huckleberry Finn - Escape From a Cruel and Oppressive Society
America... land of the free and home of the brave; the utopian society which every European citizen desired to be a part of in the 18th and 19th centuries. The revolutionary ideas of The Age of Enlightenment such as democracy and universal male suffrage were finally becoming a reality to the philosophers and scholars that so elegantly dreamt of them. America was a playground for the ideas of these enlightened men. To Europeans

being are determined by the presence or total absence of the influence of society. We, as a society, learn and grow based on the information and sociocultural influences around us. Therefore, we also grow based on the lack of society in our daily lives and activities. For example, in the satirical narrative written by Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the audience encounters the primary protagonist, Huck Finn, at a catalyzing moment in his fictional life. He is entrapped within the

of the plots for two of American literature’s greatest novels, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Great Gatsby, respectively. These stories, both appearing to have little to no similarities between them, are habitually not put together as being common tales with common literary elements shared between them; however, this opinion can be refuted. There are similarities between The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Great Gatsby on such literary devices as theme, archetypes, characterizations

Huckleberry Finn – Study of His Character
&nbsp;
In Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, he takes an alternate route from the normal adventure clich&#233;. On the surface as well as when searching for a deeper meaning, many adventure books are unfulfilling in that they posses no real message. It is not that an adventure book should be deemed poor in quality simply because it lacks depth, because that's not really what an adventure book offers. Conventionally, the adventure

particular book that can highlight most pieces of American Literature, called The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which is by a man named Samuel Clemens, who is more popularly known as Mark Twain. Huckleberry Finn is considered the quintessence of American literature, with its frontier setting and independent-minded main character, yet at the same time it is also known as a source of contention and controversy. Right as the book was released, it stirred up debate for various reasons, and it still creates

The Integrity and Strength of Huckleberry Finn
When one is young they must learn from their parents how to behave. A child's parents impose society's unspoken rules in hope that one day their child will inuitivly decerne wrong from right and make decisions based on their own judgment. These moral and ethical decisions will affect one for their entire life. In Mark Twains, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck is faced with the decision of choosing to regard all he has been taught